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"South Arabia"
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South Arabian etymology for the Meccan Kaʿbah
After publishing a new Qatabanic inscription that mentions the term kʿbt for the first time, this paper provides a South Arabian etymology for the pre-Islamic Meccan sanctuary of the Kaʿbah, which is derived traditionally from the Arabic word kaʿb “cube”. The paper suggests that the name of the Meccan Kaʿbah, and the Kaʿbah of Najrān, both derived from the ancient South Arabian term kʿbt, supposedly as a variant of the term kʾbt, which designates a high structure, probably with a protective function against water, a term which was later assigned to a sanctuary name for the deity dhu-Samāwī in Najrān; and not derived from Arabic kaʿb “cube”. The paper argues that the Arabic word “kaʿb” meaning “cube” was borrowed from Greek κύβος at a later time after the Meccan Kaʿbah had already established the cubic form that we know today.
Journal Article
Seals from Ancient South Arabia: A Preliminary Analysis
There exists widespread evidence that the Near Eastern societies manufactured seals. However, among these, South Arabian seals remain largely neglected while performing various particularly revealing functions. For instance, the practice of sealing allowed for the explicit expression of ownership as well as the act of witnessing in legal matters. More broadly, seals were a means of articulating individual identities and reinforcing communal belonging. This paper is the first study on the seals of ancient South Arabia after the unpublished Ph.D. dissertation by Diana P. Wong (1999. “Stamp Seals of the Ancient Yemen.” Unpublished PhD diss., Berkely). It investigates a corpus comprising 85 published seals currently held in museums and private collections across three continents. After providing a brief survey of the region’s history, this article analyses the epigraphic and iconographic content carved on the corpus, offering some reflections on the typology and characteristics of the seals, as well as on the society of ancient South Arabia.
Journal Article
Geomorphic hazards in south-west Saudi Arabia: The human-environmental nexus
Despite limited attention to geomorphic hazards in Saudi Arabia, the mountainous region in the south-west portion of the Kingdom has experienced a series of devastating debris flows, landslides, rockfalls, and debris floods during the past several decades. While undisturbed hillslopes are relatively stable, many rock slides, rockfalls and landslides are associated with cut and fill slopes of mountain roads and other disturbances in this steep terrain. These human-induced geomorphic hazards act synergistically to exacerbate downslope and downstream disasters, such as debris flows and debris floods. The progressive sediment loading in lowgradient channels (wadis) together with large convective rainfall events, have caused episodic evacuation of these ephemeral channels. As such, hydrogeomorphic linkages between hillslope and channel mass wasting processes may be temporally separated as wadis accumulate sediment, posing challenges for prediction of the timing of damaging debris flows. Furthermore, there is little appreciation of the extent to which human-related disturbances (e.g., mountain roads, construction sites, overgrazing) contribute to these downstream disasters or the vulnerability of passengers, residents, or herders to these anthropogenically induced hazards. Such knowledge and information is needed to develop effective hazard mitigation and real-time warning systems for this and similar dry mountain regions that experience episodic storms. Here we demonstrate the need for improved road location, construction practices, and land management in this steep terrain as well as better appreciation of the hillslope and in-channel hazard nexus to reduce downstream impacts of geomorphic disasters.
Journal Article
Internal Diversification of Mitochondrial Haplogroup R0a Reveals Post-Last Glacial Maximum Demographic Expansions in South Arabia
Widespread interest in the first successful Out of Africa dispersal of modern humans ∼60–80 thousand years ago via a southern migration route has overshadowed the study of later periods of South Arabian prehistory. In this work, we show that the post-Last Glacial Maximum period of the past 20,000 years, during which climatic conditions were becoming more hospitable, has been a significant time in the formation of the extant genetic composition and population structure of this region. This conclusion is supported by the internal diversification displayed in the highly resolved phylogenetic tree of 89 whole mitochondrial genomes (71 being newly presented here) for haplogroup R0a—the most frequent and widespread haplogroup in Arabia. Additionally, two geographically specific clades (R0a1a1a and R0a2f1) have been identified in non–Arabic speaking peoples such as the Soqotri and Mahri living in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula where a past refugium was identified by independent archaeological studies. Estimates of time to the most recent common ancestor of these lineages match the earliest archaeological evidence for seafaring activity in the peninsula in the sixth millennium BC.
Journal Article
Bronze Age cymbals from Dahwa: Indus musical traditions in Oman
Understanding the development and use of musical instruments in prehistory is often hampered by poor preservation of perishable materials and the relative rarity of durable examples. Here, the authors present a pair of third-millennium BC copper cymbals, excavated at Dahwa, Oman. Although they are the only well-contextualised examples from Arabia, the Dahwa cymbals are paralleled by contemporaneous examples from the Indus Valley and images in Mesopotamian iconography. Not only do the cymbals add to the body of evidence interpreted in terms of Indus migrants in Early Bronze Age Oman, they also suggest shared musical and potentially ritual practices around the Arabian Gulf at that time.
Journal Article
Pleistocene shaping of genetic diversity in a monsoon-affected environment: the case of Gymnosporia (Celastraceae) in the southern Arabian Peninsula
The Gymnosporia dhofarensis complex (Celastraceae) consists of the closely related taxa G. dhofarensis (Sebsebe) Jordaan and G. parviflora (Vahl) Chiov. and occurs in the fragmented and isolated monsoon-affected refugia of the coastal mountains in a vegetation of relics of (semi-)evergreen Afro-montane woodland and drier habitats (deciduous woodland, open dry scrub) of the southern Arabian Peninsula. To study the phylogeography of the complex, 536 individuals from 31 populations were analysed using cpDNA-RFLP, while a subset of 320 individuals from 20 populations was analysed using AFLP fingerprinting. Additionally, for 46 accessions from populations throughout the distribution range of the complex and 10 individuals of G. senegalensis (Lam.) Exell. s.l. sequences of nrDNA ITS were established to infer ribotype variation and allow dating of diversification events. Phylogeographical reconstructions based on six detected chloroplast haplotypes show a distinct haplotype distribution pattern with a main split between western (Northern Yemen/Jabal Eraf/Jabal Al Aghbar/Jabal Urays; G. parviflora) and eastern populations (Ras Fartak/ Hawf Mts/Dhofar Mts; G. dhofarensis). The results of AFLP fingerprinting are congruent with chloroplast data but offer an even more detailed view into the intra-regional population differentiation. The analysis of nrDNA ITS variants shows that G. dhofarensis s.1. is well separated from other Gymnosporia representatives in the study (i.e. G. senegalensis s.1. and G. aff. divaricata). Based on nrDNA ITS sequence variation, the main inter-regional split between western (G. parviflora) and eastern populations (G. dhofarensis) is dated to 0.9-2.2 Ma before present.
Journal Article
Albâtres, calcaires, granits en Arabie du Sud-Ouest
Résumé – L’Arabie du Sud-Ouest, disposée en arc-de-cercle autour du désert d’as-Sabʿatayn, est constituée de plusieurs ensembles géologiques différents, des massifs calcaires, des socles primaires et des coulées volcaniques. Chacun de ces ensembles produit des pierres différentes – albâtres, calcaires, calcédoine, granits, ardoises – qui ont été utilisées soit dans la construction des édifices soit dans leur décoration. Cette étude a pour objet les pierres qui ont été transportées d’une région à une autre. Elle s’appuie principalement sur les chantiers de Mâʾrib, de Tamnaʿ et de Shabwa et sur des prospections autour du jabal al-Nisîyîn. Selon la documentation disponible – de nombreuses pièces étant hors contexte stratigraphique – une tentative de classement chronologique de ces échanges est proposée.
Journal Article